There is nothing so bald or unsatisfactory as a Grecian building, such as has been erected in England since the so-called “revival” of Classic architecture. The cold Doric façades, or Ionic as the case may be, give one a sensation of intense dreariness. The stuccoed front of a conventicle strictly copied from the Parthenon, or more probably from the Gate of the Agora, is a thing to wonder at; and too often we form our ideas of Grecian art from modern revivals. Surely we might have expected that the principal seat of classic learning in England might boast of a proper Greek building, if the Professor of Architecture to the Royal Academy, who had made Greek design the study of his life, were employed; but no one can contemplate the Taylor and Randolph Institution at Oxford without feeling humiliated at the idea that it was erected under such circumstances. The Acropolis at Athens is an abrupt hill with a flat surface of perhaps ten acres on the top. The Eastern aspect rises in a kind of bluff, and is crowned by the Parthenon and the Propylæa. The Parthenon was an oblong temple surrounded by forty-six vast marble columns. These seen from below give at once the idea of lightness and strength, and it exhibits in the most perfect form the “entasis” or swelling that a cylinder requires; this alone would show the true eye for form of the ancient Greek architect. The Erechtheum is a vast building on the northern side of the Acropolis; and, according to Pausanias, the table-land of the Acropolis was absolutely crowded with works of art; indeed at the present time there are remains at every stride. Lamartine, in his _Voyage en Orient_, gives a vivid description of the impression the ruins of Athens made upon him, and concludes his rhapsody with reflections, of which the following is a translation:--“When again shall we find such a people and such an epoch? Nothing announces their coming. The Propylæa and the Temple of Erechtheus, or of the Caryatides, stand at the side of the Parthenon--masterpieces in themselves, but lost in the proximity of a grander masterpiece. The soul, overpowered by the sight of the latter, has no longer any power to admire the others--one must gaze and then depart!--lamenting not so much the devastation of this glorious handiwork of man, as the impossibility that man should ever equal its sublimity and harmony.” Chateaubriand eulogises Athens in a similar strain, and neither of them say one word too much perhaps; but let us fairly ask ourselves what we admire so in the classic architecture of Greece. I would say without hesitation that we fail to see the real excellence but too often. A Greek temple transported into England, yes the Parthenon itself, is barbarous and hideous. We pass it by as we would Demosthenes on a doorstep inveighing against Philip, relieved to be out of the way. There is no mysterious beauty in a column six or eight diameters high--a ruler is often of the same proportions, and we